We’ve got a school scolding students for being too comfortable in the post-graduate employment program the school itself designed to evade telling the truth to U.S. News….

The letter from George Washington University Law School dean Paul Schiff Berman to students enrolled in the school’s Pathways to Practice Program is incredibly tone-deaf and downright mean-spirited given that it comes right in the middle of bar prep time for GW’s most recent graduating class. The memo also lays bare that Berman’s Pathways program is nothing more than a bald attempt to game the employment statistics in a way that makes it look good for U.S. News. Nothing more.

Pathways to Practice is one of those initiatives you see popping up at law schools all across the country. Students who are not able to secure post-graduate legal employment can be employed by the law school doing some nominal task for 35 hours a week, but their main job is getting a real job. The programs last for a year: 35 hours a week for a year is just enough to call the position “full-time” and “long-term,” and this satisfies the U.S. News boxes for “employed upon graduation” and “employed nine months after graduation.”

Making things right with U.S. News is what the school cares about — trust me, if the school really cared about the students, the clock would start ticking on their year not from when they graduated, but from when the bar results were available in their state. That’s the year after graduation, when unemployed recent graduates have a shot at getting a job. If you couldn’t get a job as a 3L, you’re not going to be able to get a job as a 4L studying for the bar, and everybody knows that. But the schools aren’t trying to make these programs work in reality, they’re trying to make these programs aid their place in the rankings.

I'm shocked that GW would do this to unemployed students they agreed to help. But then I'm surprised at how naive I am, GW doesn't care about the students, they only care about the rankings.

There is more in the article about how rude and condescending the Dean was in his letter- he is cutting the stipend by third because he heard rumors of people turning down jobs so they could keep their stipend (which seems very unlikely to me) and to incentivize students in the fellowships to find jobs.

I might quote more later - but this really sickens me. I sortof hate GW.

We’ve got a school scolding students for being too comfortable in the post-graduate employment program the school itself designed to evade telling the truth to U.S. News….

The letter from George Washington University Law School dean Paul Schiff Berman to students enrolled in the school’s Pathways to Practice Program is incredibly tone-deaf and downright mean-spirited given that it comes right in the middle of bar prep time for GW’s most recent graduating class. The memo also lays bare that Berman’s Pathways program is nothing more than a bald attempt to game the employment statistics in a way that makes it look good for U.S. News. Nothing more.

Pathways to Practice is one of those initiatives you see popping up at law schools all across the country. Students who are not able to secure post-graduate legal employment can be employed by the law school doing some nominal task for 35 hours a week, but their main job is getting a real job. The programs last for a year: 35 hours a week for a year is just enough to call the position “full-time” and “long-term,” and this satisfies the U.S. News boxes for “employed upon graduation” and “employed nine months after graduation.”

Making things right with U.S. News is what the school cares about — trust me, if the school really cared about the students, the clock would start ticking on their year not from when they graduated, but from when the bar results were available in their state. That’s the year after graduation, when unemployed recent graduates have a shot at getting a job. If you couldn’t get a job as a 3L, you’re not going to be able to get a job as a 4L studying for the bar, and everybody knows that. But the schools aren’t trying to make these programs work in reality, they’re trying to make these programs aid their place in the rankings.

I'm shocked that GW would do this to unemployed students they agreed to help. But then I'm surprised at how naive I am, GW doesn't care about the students, they only care about the rankings.

There is more in the article about how rude and condescending the Dean was in his letter- he is cutting the stipend by third because he heard rumors of people turning down jobs so they could keep their stipend (which seems very unlikely to me) and to incentivize students in the fellowships to find jobs.

I might quote more later - but this really sickens me. I sortof hate GW.

When will people realize these are businesses? They care as much about you as you care about them.

Pathways to Practice is one of those initiatives you see popping up at law schools all across the country. Students who are not able to secure post-graduate legal employment can be employed by the law school doing some nominal task for 35 hours a week, but their main job is getting a real job. The programs last for a year: 35 hours a week for a year is just enough to call the position “full-time” and “long-term,” and this satisfies the U.S. News boxes for “employed upon graduation” and “employed nine months after graduation.”

GW is private, so that's why this isn't a glorified welfare-program, right?

Pathways to Practice is one of those initiatives you see popping up at law schools all across the country. Students who are not able to secure post-graduate legal employment can be employed by the law school doing some nominal task for 35 hours a week, but their main job is getting a real job. The programs last for a year: 35 hours a week for a year is just enough to call the position “full-time” and “long-term,” and this satisfies the U.S. News boxes for “employed upon graduation” and “employed nine months after graduation.”

GW is private, so that's why this isn't a glorified welfare-program, right?

Any public universities running this type of program?

If you are interested the ABA numbers show school funded positions, but yes both private and public institutions have them as far as I know. These students have actual fellowships with PI organizations, the school pays them because the organizations can't.

I'm not against the school funding jobs, I'm against the school counting all these jobs in their employment numbers to make them look better than they would otherwise.

Campos is a joke. I saw him speak one time and heard him rail Justice Scalia for a good 20 minutes. Newsflash pal, you're not smarter than Justice Scalia and you're not a better authority on Constitutional Law than him, either.

Dean Berman wrote:Also, I have now heard several anecdotal reports of graduates turning down paying work so that they can remain in the Pathways Program and hopefully find more desirable work later. This is not how the Program is intended to be used. You should jump at any paying legal work opportunity, and if it’s not your ideal position, then use it as a launchpad for your next search.

Damn. It's like the back of his hand rose from the page to slap the reader across the face.

Yossarian79 wrote:As has been said about Newt Gingrich, Scalia is a dumb person's idea of what a smart person sounds like.

I think I love you.

androstan wrote:

rickgrimes69 wrote:

Yossarian79 wrote:As has been said about Newt Gingrich, Scalia is a dumb person's idea of what a smart person sounds like.

This is credited.

+1

lolol. You'd have to be the least self-aware partisan retard ever to think that Scalia isn't smart. You might reasonably disagree with his positions, but if you hear him speak and think "this guy isn't smart" then that probably says something negative about your own intelligence.

Yossarian79 wrote:As has been said about Newt Gingrich, Scalia is a dumb person's idea of what a smart person sounds like.

I think I love you.

androstan wrote:

rickgrimes69 wrote:

Yossarian79 wrote:As has been said about Newt Gingrich, Scalia is a dumb person's idea of what a smart person sounds like.

This is credited.

+1

lolol. You'd have to be the least self-aware partisan retard ever to think that Scalia isn't smart. You might reasonably disagree with his positions, but if you hear him speak and think "this guy isn't smart" then that probably says something negative about your own intelligence.

He never said Scalia was dumb, just that dumb people think he's smart.

Although, he has had some pretty awful opinions (citizens united anyone?)